October 3, 2011

"GOP primary voters don’t like being told they have 'no heart' — but they don’t like the press trying to take a Republican out with a second-order racial-insensitivity scandal either. … If I had to guess which candidate’s camp leaked this story, I might guess Perry’s. Who benefits?"

I think that Herman Cain hurts himself by joining in on these attacks. His big appeal is that he’s not just another black race-card-playing politician. Climbing on board with the Post’s hit piece suggests that actually, he is. It reminds me of Tim Pawlenty’s weak and opportunistic reaction to the attacks on Sarah Palin. I think that’s what killed his campaign. If you side with the media establishment against other Republicans, you won’t help yourself in this election cycle.

But you know who really benefits? Obama. And I don't mean because it's about race. Obama benefits whenever any subject other than the economy captures the public's attention.

Perry and Cain, two joke candidates who stand no chance of winning the nomination.

I can't figure out if you post about them so much because you take them seriously or because you find them entertaining. Like a car crash that you can't help but looking at, except the cars that crashed were both clown cars just full of clowns.

Fred's got it right. It should be pounded into Cain's head that you don't give the treasonous bastards in the media ammunition. Keep dancing to their tune, and you might as well put a "Mc" in front of your name.

"Two joke candidates who stand no chance of winning the nomination."

Which was true in spades about the SCOAMF before the media dropped to their collective knees to deepthroat him. And in any event, I think much of Perry's and Cain's (and Christie's) appeal to the base is that they are not being shoved down their throats by the MSM, GOP panjandrums and Little Black Jesus himself, as Mittens is every damn day.

Andy R wrote: I can't figure out if you post about them so much because you take them seriously or because you find them entertaining.

Poor Andy can't figure out if he comments here because he takes Althouse seriously or because he finds her entertaining. In any case, the last thing he wants to talk about are the economic failures of his hero.

I hope there isn't that much blood there - I wouldn't mind a Perry/Cain ticket, but almost expect Romney/Cain right now.

As I have pointed out before, Cain is the perfect VP candidate. He is articulate, sunny, good on his feet, and can work as a good attack dog. Much better than Biden, who appears to be in the middle stages of dementia. Cain also works well as a counter to racism, esp. since he is a real black who grew up in the segregated south, versus half black who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia.

But, I don't see him ready for the top slot. He has no governing experience, nor any real political experience. After a stint as the VP though...

Anything we can talk about, other than the economy or Fast and Furious, is at worst a net gain for Obama.

Even if it's something that makes Obama look bad, it's not as bad as Obama's economic record.

Anyway, I do not understand the outrage. There was racism in this country for a long time. If you own a large piece of land or an old building, there's a chance it had racism on it 75 years ago.

Did Rick Perry name this rock? Did he paint it with that slur? No.

My guess is that it was painted over, and because Perry has been very busy for the past decade +, the paint has faded a bit and you can read through it. That's just a complete guess. Maybe it's painted over and you can't read it. Maybe some idiot painted the N word back on the rock. Maybe a dirty trickster is on their way down there now to do it.

Who cares? Perry's answer was perfect. It's an ugly word, and his family rejected that name for the rock long ago.

Shame on Herman Cain. This is the third time he's acted very strangely, in my book. Shame shame shame. I was starting to waver in my Perry support, wondering if Cain is a better candidate. I won't bother with that again. Now it's Perry, and if he falls on his ass and I need a second choice, I will probably go with Newt (I doubt this will happen).

Cain is solidly rejected.

Cain's been acting like he's got some kind of mission to protect Romney, ever since he blurted out 'case closed' when Romney gave a terrible answer on a flip flop. I think Cain's claim he wouldn't support Perry if nominated puts him in Murkowski territory.

And if Cain prefers Romney to Perry, then Cain is not conservative and has terrible skill at judging character.

I like Cain anyway, and I think some of this is just bad instincts as a politician, since Cain is not really a politician. He's a good guy, but we need someone who is experienced.

Obama benefits whenever any subject other than the economy captures the public's attention.

True, but if all of this is hashed out in the primary, there is less for him to use in the general.

And Kaus had the same reaction I had re: Cain.

So I guess about every GOP candidate who slams MSM bias has now embraced an MSM meme when it suited. Hates Social Security? CHECK... Racially insenstive (toward Hispanics?)CHECK...Racially Insensitive (toward Blacks?) CHECK...

Hmmm...Hey, did you hear that Romney is really, really rich and practices a strange religion? I just read it!

Being the racists Tea Bagger that I am. I like Cain. I think he just got the facts wrong here. Still, it's just not important to me. So far, Cain is the only true conservative.

I've come to the conclusion, after seeing Morgan Freeman's lapse into stupidity, that Blacks have a knee jerk reaction to this stuff. It's wrong and unfair, but understandable. I don't care about that, unless it affects policy, and I don't think Cain has much of this kind of weakness.

"Anything we can talk about, other than the economy or Fast and Furious, is at worst a net gain for Obama."

How?

If this damages Cain and Perry, then Romney will probably be the nominee. Obama appears to be losing to "generic Republican" in the most predictive polls. Romney is the most "generic Republican" one can imagine.

Since Obama clearly has a lot to be worried about from all those horrible racists who just hate having a black President, he would presumably benefit if Cain is nominated. Cain is actually African-American, from Tennessee, not a part-Arab, part-African, part-Irish Hawaiian. And those racist Republicans would surely rather have the half-Irish guy if they have to make the choice.

Remember that two-year period in the 90s when Garafolo was in about every other movie released? Amazing.

Mystery Men, etc. Wasn't she dating Stiller at the time? He had a lot of gravitas at the time (which explains how MM got made in the first place) which extended to his father. I think that helped grease the skids quite a bit for JG.

Agreed. Before she got political, she was kind of fun. She was never anything but a drag on SNL though.

"True enough, but that doesn't help Obama. As the incumbent, he's trying not to lose his job. "

Obama's problem is that he has nothing positive. He can't run on any accomplishment. Healthcare? A liability. Economy? A liability. Osama Bin Laden? Comes across badly to lionize Obama for the easiest call.

Obama has two tools. One is to distract from joblessness, and the other is to see his foes smeared. I think Perry will be the nominee, btw. I think the idea he's going to abolish social security, has poisoned 'little girls' with retard poison, and is a racist, are all dishonest and unfair attacks from Perry's own party that we will see repeated.

Then again, this isn't helping Obama do anything he couldn't do without the GOP's help. I don't think these attacks make Perry weaker. I think they make him stronger. I just wish Perry was smoother in debates.

It's not just unimportant, it's untrue. Hence, Cain should lose some support for this, just as Perry lost some for his gaffes.

Why did you want Fred to be president? Not because of his executive experience, but because of his smooth delivery of great points? I think that kind of analysis might undercut Perry in your estimation. A lot of voters are more interested in a record of spending discipline as a successful executive.

Perry has slipped, but he could easily be the nominee because he has such a good record. Cain is much more gaffe prone, and his record is a harder to relate. And sometimes he clearly reacts strongly and in the wrong direction. I think Cain would make a good president, and if he's the nominee I will be relatively pleased, but he's not more likely than Perry to get there, IMO.

I'm dating myself by bringing this up, but there was a pop psychology book written in the 60s called "Games People Play" by a Dr Eric Berne. One of the dysfunctional strategies employed by the subjects was a game called "Let's You and Him Fight." That sums up the WaPo's effort in amplifying the non-issue of graffiti near Perry's ranch. I'm sorry that Herman Cain took the bait, because there are many non-ad hominem ways to attack Perry.

Don't they have something more substantial? Like maybe his father was an avowed Marxist or maybe Perry sat in a racist church for 20 years listening to sermons about what a lousy country this is? Cause if that was the case, he'd never be elected.

Why is always "blame the media"? Unless of course it if Fox and their legion of Right Wing Talkng Heads. Perry did or did not do what he did or did not do. The media bring it up isn't a hit job. If it happened, it happened. If you can dish it out you should be able to take it without whining.

I'll echo what a few others have said, and just say that I'm not sure I would have handled that any different than Perry did. He had it painted over. What would his critics have him do? Certainly nothing that's reasonable. Anything *more* than painting it over would have been pointed at as some sort of overreaction, and the media would say that he went to extraordinary lengths to obliterate the graffito because he is a closet racist. Just like Bachmann's husband gets labelled gay because he's mixed up with all that ex-gay nonsense.

The mistake is thinking that the media would have played the story straight, even if the facts had been different. The media doesn't care about facts, it cares about its narrative that Republicans are racists. No matter what. Which is essentially what Garofalo was saying about Cain. It happens all the time. There's no getting around it, save to call the media on how idiotic they're being.

if cain is setting up his credentials. he isn't a race hustler, but he will react to something that offensive, and i think rightly so--although i haven't seen any clear evidence that perry is somehow responsible for the rock's name or display.

But then later Cain can talk about how Obama sat silently for decades in an-out-and-out-racist church. and marched with the racist black panthers. who by the way showed up to intimidate voters and were given a walk by his justice dept.

See by Cain making this reasonable objection, it gives him the status to dig into obama later. of course he has to be nominated, first, but...

btw, the best reason to make cain the next president? Then for the next four years whenever anyone on the left opposes his policies, we can call them racists!

He's going hunting - as an adult - with his Dad in Texas - where there are probably thousands of hunting spots - and they come across a place called "Niggerhead" (it wasn't just the rock; it was the name of the place given by folks).

And he just kept on. Didn't stop. Didn't reconsider. Didn't think, well maybe this is something we don't want to associate with. "Let's go somewhere else; there are lots of places we can go to. We don't have to go here."

If the place was called "Kikeville", we all would know that's not a place you want to go.

Again - for the slow folks - I'm not holding this against him. It's not a negative for me.

But it was an opportunity for him to be a bit better than all of us.

As I said above, I probably would have grimaced about the name and the stone and thought, "Well, it's just a name. Let's go hunting."

Texas has essentially no public land. His father secured a lease on a good piece of hunting ground -- not easy to get, nor cheap. So he painted over the rock.

It would have been insulting to refuse the gift of this hunting opportunity, without a good reason.

If you encounter offensive graffiti on public land, do you refuse to go anywhere near it? Is that some etiquette that binds Rick Perry, but nobody else in the world? I've sure never heard of it in all the time I've been wearing out hiking boots.

Not only are you showing that you have no idea what you're talking about, even if you did, you are applying a standard of expected behavior to Rick Perry that applies to nobody else in the world.

Give it up.

Find other reasons to oppose Rick Perry, because going on about this, in this way, undermines any credibility you might have in your attempts to persuade people not to support the guy.

And the only people I know who are so self-conscious of their moral loftiness that they'd actually make a point of avoiding a plot of land because of its name are Progressives, who wouldn't be hunting in the first place.

This is a non-story. Implicating Perry of latent racism because he didn't pull up his skirt and run from Niggerhead is absurd. It's to his credit, in fact, that he didn't stop for a photo-op, beer raised in one hand and thumbs-up in another, which is what I would have done if I found a rock with such a phrase on it. Come on. Niggerhead. How many times in your life will that happen?

Perry was a Democrat when the "Niggerhead" incident occured. So was his father (as a county supervisor and a member of the schoolboard). The Democrats hand us a slam dunk [because they are too stupid to look it up] and the commenters here are still are debating the issue on the Democrat's terms. Unbelievable.

Looks like Cain had better watch his step, he forgot to be the nodding and smiling House Negro and actually slipped and said something truthful about the slandering of his race by a fellow Republican.

Cain won't make it with the right wing , they don't like to be reminded that he is still an African American man, that despite being conservative he still shares a common history with fellow AA's. I predict one more slip and he will be out on his ear via the same door that Palin, Bachmann, and Perry went through.

I'll repeat: if this place was called "Kike-head" or "Spic-head" or any other derogatory name, I think we'd all sit back and ask, "Hmm, what was he thinking going there?"

It doesn't mean he's a bigot. To make myself clear: I don't think there's any evidence that Perry is a racist or bigot.

But he didn't exactly act as a profile in courage here.

Let's turn the story around slightly: What if we learned that he and his Dad had decided not to go to this place? What if we learned they had been vocally critical of the name? What if they got together with others and had that stone removed?

Would be think better of them? Or the same?

There's a long ugly history of horrible racism in this country. Black Americans were treated like dirt. And worse. You cannot ignore that history.

This was an opportunity lost. If Perry is the candidate against Obama I'l likely support him (unless he really blows up during the campaign).

if Cain is setting up his credentials. he isn't a race hustler, but he will react to something that offensive, and i think rightly so--although i haven't seen any clear evidence that perry is somehow responsible for the rock's name or display.

The vibe I got from this was it's a shameless attempt to hit Rick Perry with a bogus racism charge.

Now maybe Cain's just naive. That's what Rush Limbaugh suggested today. The MSM used him to bash Republicans for racism. But if he's naive, he's incompetent, and who wants that in a leader?

Why speak on it at all?

The MSM asked Cain to speak on it because he has black skin. They didn't ask any other candidate to speak on it. Nor did they ask Obama to speak on it.

If they had asked Obama to speak on it, he would have declined, right? He would have been far more subtle. Obama lets other people make racist allegations. He is above the fray.

Cain, meanwhile, allows himself to be portrayed as the go-to black guy who is lecturing white America on our collective guilt.

If he thinks Republicans want a nominee like that, I'm afraid he is very mistaken.

And it's certainly not a good idea to allow the MSM to reduce him to his skin color and start commenting on all things black. He was just asked about Morgan Freeman, and now he's asked about this crap. He's letting the MSM put him into the intellectual ghetto of racial politics.

On background, Perry took the elite Texans he was schmoozing on organized hunts. Being asked was a notable act of recognition.

The monied elite works out to be a small group in any State.

And the monied elite in Texas does still refer to Atlanta as N---er Town.

In Georgia Bob Woodruff always took his schmoozees to Ichauway Plantation. Being asked to go on a hunt there was a notable financial and political recognition...much bigger even than rounds of golf at Augusta National.

Ichauway is 22 miles SW of Albany, Ga. and a three hour limo drive from Atlanta. Plains Ga. is 70 miles to the North.

Perry is a good candidate, if you like empathetic politicians who favor businessmen's interests over trial lawyers who help common injured people.

But pretending that southern politics is not racially influenced is not authentic.

Herman Cain doesn't owe it to Rick Perry to pretend that what every southern black man knows from experience is something that never happens. Honesty is what makes good future interactions possible.

SMGalbraith, it's not about your politics. I don't know what you think of Perry, and I don't care. I don't care what I think of Perry, really, either. If he is nominated, I'd choose him over Obama, but that's a VERY low bar at this point, and I fear it will be a lower one in 2012.

It's about the fact that you have NO CLUE whatsoever about the situation you're posting so much about. You revealed that, clearly, in your post about just going and finding another hunting spot.

In Texas, you can't do that.

Your assumptions are invalid, and your conclusion is therefore ridiculous.

I don't get it. The Perrys saw a rock with a bad word on it, and Perry's dad took the first opportunity available to "censor" the rock with paint. What was he supposed to do? Machine-gun the rock? Call an exorcist? Call on the Texas National Guard to shell the place? What?

Do you also complain to gas station managers that people write impolite things in the bathroom? Do you often write to publishers when something in a book is offensive to you? Do you email ISP's when somebody using their service writes something you find offensive?

I ask because it'd be REALLY hypocritical if you didn't live up the standards you expect of others...

It's a legitimate news story - very legitimate. If a Presidential candidate and frontrunner is comfortable at a ranch named "Niggerhead" then it speaks volumes to his values and character.

If he was actually offended by the term and actually sought to change the name of the ranch, he would have done so and we would know what the new name for the ranch is. He did not and we do not.

His claim that he had the name changed in 1983 clashes with the reporter's view of the rock with the name still visible and with the accounts from locals saying it has been called Niggerhead even in very recent years.

If Perry had taken action, it would be known as something else.

in response, of course, the right wing has jumped all over "Herb" Cain and has accused the reporter of political motivation. The last thing they have done is seek any accountability from Mr Perry or express outrage of a Presidential candidate recreating and hosting political events at his "Niggerhead" ranch.

If he was actually offended by the term and actually sought to change the name of the ranch, he would have done so and we would know what the new name for the ranch is. He did not and we do not.

What part of "IT WASN'T HIS PROPERTY" don't you get. He can't change the name of the ranch.

As pointed out, the people in the area have historical names for geographic locations and to try to get everyone in the County or State to stop calling something by an historical name....well you might as well piss up a rope.

The County came in here and changed the names of several roads that have been known by the ranching family that has lived on the road since it was a mule trail. No one uses the new County name and in fact, the old name now appears on a sign attached just below the useless county sign.

Maybe someday people will forget the old ranch name, but for now....get over it!

"Perry is a good candidate, if you like empathetic politicians who favor businessmen's interests over trial lawyers who help common injured people."

LOL.

Oh that was good. Please tell me you're joking, though. Are you talking about doctors? Yes, Perry fought a difficult campaign to protect doctors with a cap on torts from ambulance chasers, making it profitable to serve Texans with affordable healthcare.

This is the opposite of Romneycare, which forces the common man to buy into insurance companies, even if he doesn't want to.

And Texas's solution worked better. It amounts to limiting intrusion via lawyers and the court process, getting government out of the way, at least to a reasonable degree.

Perry has been hit with lie after lie. Seems Cain, Bachmann, and Romney have been particularly eager to hammer this guy unfairly.

No worries. I'm still voting Perry unless something major changes. I don't need an establishment candidate. I need a leader with a record.

Chris in MA - I think much of Perry's and Cain's (and Christie's) appeal to the base is that they are not being shoved down their throats by the MSM, GOP panjandrums and Little Black Jesus himself, as Mittens is every damn day.

===============The GOP establishment is very comfortable with Mitt Romney. They think he is electable and is the best candidate to address jobs and the economy.The media has hardly deep-throated Romney - they trashed him in 2008 as out of touch, phony, and disliked by "real Americans" in favor of "The War Hero Who Suffered" - McCain. Until THAT little treacherous lapdog of the networks and NY Times found himself up against their True Love - The Black Messiah.

As for Christie, Perry, and Cain...the media 1st and foremost wants An Exciting Horse Race!! and selectively attack. Perry was rolled out as savior, and the media only went after him when they smelled blood in the water and the approved progressive Jewish narrative became "A dumber version of George W. Bush".

They focused in the two religious zealots - Santorum and Bachmann - for pet hate.They have given Ron Paul a pass because he is the official gadfly in the Horserace!! narrative.And while Republican women have been trashed, the media has given a AA pass to the black guy. (So far).And played along with the rubes on CHristie so far - not pointing out Christies antigun and proabortion creds.

One thing I note in this is that there is a strong movement in America to eradicate history that doesn't fit the liberal and progressive Jewish narrative.

1. In America - all names and "symbols" must be eradicated and confined only to textbooks if they "offend". (But if you eradicate all tangible evidence, how do you convince future generations it existed in the 1st place??)Maybe we would be better off with a few Harlem shop signs with "No whites or spics allowed" kept for museums. A "Nigger Mountain" or "Colored Creek" left without a new PC name, a Squaw Valley, a "Tortilla Flat."

2. Historical figures more popular then than the narrative admits must be described as "hated by the people". (More people voted for Richard Nixon during his lifetime than any other historical figure in America).

I thought about it in context of an older black engineer I know who has a segregated water fountain for a family souvenir. Hooked up and running in his back yard. Porcelain stand from a public park in Tallahassee. The only one that survived destruction ordered. Two spigots, and in porcelain in big block letters - "WHITE ONLY" "COLORED ONLY" for the handles. With common supply pipe and common drain pipe. His dad was in the civil rights movement, peripherally, but was also a civic guy and a professional accountant. He fought the removal. Thought some or all should be left as historical evidence of Jim Crow.

I think it is a good point.

BTW - the engineer was offered good money for the antique. There are collectors (many who are wealthy blacks like Bill Cosby) of Jim Crow and other "racially insensitive" antiques, bric a brac - and much of it is now quite valuable because so much of the original material was destroyed.

@chickenlittle - The allies and the Germans did a pretty good job of erasing all the swastikas. Perhaps too good a job, as the conventional line with the war and Nazi past so long gone with Germans is that Nazis were a tiny minority of Germans and most towns and cities were free of any real Nazi influence before the "unfortunate war".

An article about "The buried past" in one town had locals amazed at how many Nazi eagles, swastikas and other symbols once 'graced' their town. A Nazi official and shutterbug had left a scrapbook of every flag, building ornament the party put up. Most had been so meticulously removed and replaced with blank masonry, other symbols..the locals never knew they ever had been there.

Not the 1st time a history is erased by policy. We know pharoahs tried eradicating all physical manifestations of past pharoahs.

Almost all the statues to Stalin were gone in the USSR by the 80s.

Makes you wonder what we have in our lives today in America that defines us - may be deliberately erased by US citizens or Chinese overlords in the long-off future.

"... I'm not looking for saints. But I'm looking for a person who sees things a bit better and more clearly than most folks do..."

I think you're looking for a saint, or perhaps a prophet. I'm guessing after painting over the offending word on rock, a 30 something Perry wasn't thinking that hunting on the leased property would become a scandal that would derail his presidential run in 30 years.

I swear there has to be something more on thus guy, like smoking pot and snorting coke.

Andy wrote:Perry and Cain, two joke candidates who stand no chance of winning the nomination.

While I agree they (or at least Cain) doesn't really have a chance of winning, I wouldn't be as dismissive of joke candidates who stand little chance of winning. If you think back to when Obama announced his candidacy, did anyone really put much credence in him actually getting anywhere? Obama was a joke candidate until he wasn't.HIllary and some other democratic staples were the front runners.

It's a legitimate news story - very legitimate. If a Presidential candidate and frontrunner is comfortable at a ranch named "Niggerhead" then it speaks volumes to his values and character.

If a presidential candidate is comfortorable working with a domestic terrorist, and goes to a black theology church that spells america, Amerikkka, what does THAT say about a candidate? To dems nothign. The past is the past. So then why all of a sudden are they getting up in arms about a rock with a racial epithet on it from 30 years ago? Does association and actions of the past suddenly have meaning? Hmm, so then we can now delve into Obama's past all over again. Right dems? Right dems? And you can't ignore it this time. Right, dems? Right, dems?

"White Republicans get called racists, and black Republicans get called Uncle Toms, and we are sick of it. We are sick of the games and sick of you people in the media trying to manipulate the American people. We are hurting in this economy and you want to talk about a rock from 25 years ago. What is the matter with you people?"

That would have gone over big.

If he didn't want to give that speech--and maybe that doesn't reflect his views--then he should have taken a page out of the Obama playbook and shut the hell up about it.

Not surprising at all, Cain is now running away from his own damn interview.

His media advisor quit over this, apparently. I don't think he helped himself at all.

They're merely pointing out the brazen hypocrisy of supporting a president that was tangled in black liberation theology for decades, while trying to peg Perry with a nonexistent six-degrees-of-separation sensitivity infraction.

That may be enough to get a special prosecutor. The AG essentially lied about knowing about F&F before Congress. They may spin this that he didn't know the details, but the fact is that he had heard the name, and testified that he hadn't. And, with the way that the DoJ is stonewalling, should be sufficient.

It may turn out to be as innocent as the MSM/DNC is spinning, but there is enough smoke now to justify a special prosecutor - or, if Holder refuses (since his own ass in on the line now), impeachment hearings of him and his assistants.

Just one more reason that the Obama Administration and its minions and supporters are spinning like crazy, trying to yell racist here - to detract from the real scandals (including all that money given away last week to Obama, etc. supporters - including Pelosi's brother).

I hear that Democrats are justifiably proud of the way their party has disavowed and ostracized all of their politicians and talking heads who have ever used the term "teabagger" as an offensive, disgusting slur.

Radio Raheem: Let me tell you the story of Right Hand, Left Hand. It's a tale of good and evil. Hate: it was with this hand that Herman Cane iced his brother. Love: these five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The Mitt Romney. The right hand: the hand of love. The story of life is this: whacking. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand, Love, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses, the right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes, now, that's right. Ooh, it's a devastating right and Hate is hurt, he's down. Left-Hand Hate KOed by Love. Man the Cane hand is the slow hand. Of love. Baby.(Do the Right Wing Thing, 1989)

Considering your standard, I don't know how you can participate in anything on the internet. The only option you have is to throw your computer out the window right now. But of course you won't, because you are full of shit sitting there reading all kinds of crap from all kinds of sources, and then participating and thereby supporting it.

There is stuff on this blog everyday that's worse than that stupid rock, which at least has a historic basis. This blog is one of the cleaner corners of the web you participate in like a guy cooking hot dogs in the bonfire at a clan rally. How can you live with yourself? I would expect better from a man of such conviction.

Not too long ago -- more recently than Perry's rock incident -- there was an actual Democratic presidential candidate who called New York City "Hymietown." He has also been known to use the N-word to describe African-Americans.

That was quite the unforced error by Cain who up to now has run a nearly flawless campaign. He's talked about solutions, pounded away at Obama, and only criticized his opponenents - usually with a happy demeanor - when directly asked by reporters. That, and he delivers one hell of a speech. I put him at no chance until the Florida straw poll. The man has talent and a history of real accomplishment. He should not be dismissed.

Why he joined the pig-piling on Perry is a mystery. Perry's incoherent, word-salad attack on Romney as a flip-flopper disqualified him as a serious candidate. There was no need for Cain to try to punch more holes in the Perry ship. Mr. people-who-disagree-with-me-on-illegal-immigrant-tuition-have-no-heart was sinking fast.

People have long memories for nasty attacks on someone they like. Bachmann's hysterical vaccine smear on Perry has her now in low single digits.

Agreed. The problem is that the AG has to agree to the appointment of an independent prosecutor, who, BTW, will most often be one of his AAGs, such as Patrick Fitzgerald, who was AAG of IL in the PlameGate pseudo-scandal. The AAGs work for the AG, and often the AG had a hand in picking them. One thing for sure - the current AAGs are staunch political Democrats, most of whom worked at least indirectly for Obama's election.

One of the reasons that Rep. Issa is supposedly delaying calling for such is that he wants to get as much information as he can before then, so that when he does call for a special prosecutor, and one is appointed, he (Issa) can monitor the investigation and make sure that it isn't a cover-up, which is what the DoJ IG's investigation appears to be right now.

My point with my previous post was that now there is a smoking gun, in the form of the memo to AG Holder, and a more to his deputy. Holder has been caught red-handed lying to Congress. The spin is likely that he will claim that a lot of memos come across his desk that he doesn't read - but that would mean that he is incompetent - but the alternative is that he was lying. Or, maybe he might try to do a Clinton, and claim that they didn't ask if he had "read" about Fast and Furious, but just if he had "heard" about it.

In any case, this is enough smoke that a special prosecutor can be justified. And, I think that ultimately, Obama/Holder may be forced to name one. We shall see.

Right now though, I think that the Administration thinks that they can ignore this scandal, as well as all those "Green" Energy loans, because they have the major newspapers and other MSM carrying water for them - such as the WaPo going after Perry over the rock, instead of doing their job investigating the various scandals of the Administration.

Writ Small, yes, I agree. I doubt it is fatal, but he better be a quick study. The MSM is not his friend.

Bruce Hayden, I hope so. A special prosecutor is absolutely needed for this. If Holder is into this even a quarter as much as we think he needs to get (at the minimum) da boot. If there were any justice, some jail time. People died from this.

Imagine that, a man whose family ranch is called Niggerhead is a neo-Confederate.

A.) The ranch is not a 'family ranch'.They lease a portion of the ranch along with a bunch of other people for the purpose of a hunting camp.

This is a common thing in rural areas. Many of the ranches here routinely lease hunting rights to people from other areas.

B.) The ranch is named Throckmorton. Not Niggerhead.

The nickname of Niggerhead was given to a geographic area on the ranch generations ago. Probably over a hundred years ago.

C.) Perry, his father and any of the other leasees can't rename the ranch from Throckmorton to something else because THEY DON'T OWN THE RANCH. They have no control over what other people use as a nickname for geographic features.